Lu Zhang, 28, sole director of SP Trading Ltd, pleaded guilty on 4 November 2010 to 74 charges in the Auckland District Court and was convicted but no penalty was imposed, said her lawyer Frank Deliu.

She could have faced up to five years in jail and/or a fine of $200,000, but was convicted and discharged. She was accused of making false statements in company registration forms by claiming that her office address was her residence. She registered 75 companies. (Auckland NZPA) [Read more…]

Dangerous gaps in New Zealand’s company registration system are being exploited by arms brokers, aid organisation Oxfam says.

“Controls around company registration in New Zealand need to be tightened to prevent New Zealand businesses from unwittingly or deliberately facilitating illicit arms transfers,” the group says in a report today.

Oxfam’s “Brokers without Borders” examined the way a New Zealand company, SP Trading Ltd, smuggled arms out of North Korea late last year for an unknown destination.

Oxfam noted that nobody in New Zealand has been prosecuted for the arms trading despite it breaking United Nations sanctions and New Zealand law.

The charges recently laid by the Companies Office against Lu Zhang for her alleged offences against s. 373 of the Companies Office Act 1993 – signals a new era of reform: a war against the abuse of the Companies Office register by unscrupulous company directors. By providing false residential and/or registered office addresses they seek to avoid full accountability to enforcement agencies, evade authorities and hide financial matters. Full credit to reporter Michael Field of Fairfax Media who broke the story about multiple shell companies operating out of an Auckland Queen Street building and their alleged links to illegal arms trafficking involving North Korea.

Criminal activities linked to prostitution and human trafficking, the international porn trade, drug and weapons trafficking, have all been linked to money laundering of the proceeds of crime.